Trump Gets Bought Out of the Culture Wars

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, February 07, 2024

 

Like a bolt from the blue, Donald Trump signaled his intention to negotiate a cease-fire between conservative culture warriors and Bud Light on Tuesday night.

 

In a message posted to his personal social-media network, the former president declared Anheuser-Busch “not a woke company.” He went on to unleash a blizzard of obscure statistics that purport to demonstrate why the beer maker is, in fact, a humble, salt-of-the-earth brand that holds the American social fabric together.

 

“Anheuser-Busch spends $700 million a year with our GREAT Farmers,” Trump wrote. The firm employs “65 thousand Americans, of which 1,500 are Veterans, and is a Founding Corporate Partner of Folds of Honor, which provides scholarships for families of fallen Servicemen & Women. They’ve raised over $30,000,000 and given 44,000 scholarships.” In short, the former president concluded, Bud Light deserves “a second chance” — quite unlike those other unnamed American companies “that are looking to DESTROY AMERICA!”

 

Trump’s benevolent overture — one that seems conspicuously informed by the brand itself — might not have been entirely inspired by his generosity of spirit. Rather, it was likely a prerequisite to unlock the generosity of the brand.

 

“Trump’s message also comes as a top Republican lobbyist for the company is set to host a fundraiser for the former president next month, with some tickets going at $10,000 each,” Politico reported that evening.

 

National Review’s Kayla Bartsch noted that Trump’s family is similarly invested — in every sense of the word — in the embattled brand’s rehabilitation. “The event is set to feature over a hundred members of Congress, as well as special guest Donald Trump, Jr.,” she reported. “Trump’s comments come after his son, who is expected to attend Miller’s fundraiser, defended Bud Light on a podcast earlier this year.”

 

If Trump can negotiate a cease-fire along this front in the culture wars, it would be good news for everyone involved. By the end of the third quarter of 2023, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s adjusted earnings had declined by 17 percent “primarily due to the volume decline of Bud Light.” That decline was the foreseeable result of a marketing campaign designed, in the words of its architect, onetime vice president of marketing Alissa Heinerscheid, to bring in “new consumers” and eject a customer base addicted to “fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor.” The campaign culminated in the anointment of theatrical trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney as a brand ambassador, and the enterprise backfired spectacularly.

 

Trump, too, could use the cash. The Republican National Committee is struggling financially at the outset of the 2024 general election, having devoted outlandish sums to activities that have nothing to do with getting candidates elected to high office. Trump’s campaign and outside groups loyal to the former president raised $188 million last year, but at least $48 million of that haul was devoted to the former president’s legal expenses. Democrats are expected to outraise and outspend the former president throughout the campaign.

 

Trump and Anheuser-Busch need one another. Their mutual admiration is set to cool the tensions between Bud Light and the customers the brand communicated in no uncertain terms it did not want. Everyone wins — everyone, that is, save those who supported the effective and organic effort by cultural conservatives to convince corporate America that social-justice activism doesn’t pay. Not only does it pay, it pays off all the right people.